Sitting Tall!

Reid is now sitting up! This is just the beginning of my favorite baby age when they can sit up and play with toys, but can't get away from you just yet. ;)

Of course he still has to be propped up most of the time, unless you're sitting near him. He still tends to get distracted and then will fall over. I mean, who doesn't do that?!?

Reid and I had some time to ourselves the other day...which is a rare event! Even though he was only in a onesie, I took my camera outside to see what he thought of sitting in the grass for the first time. To my surprise, he didn't cry one bit!

The grass felt a little cool , but he didn't seem to mind!
It was so hard to take pictures of him as he was constantly enthralled with the grass and the cars passing by. Here I caught either the beginning or the end of a big smile.

Like I said, the cars were a distraction. I have about 20 pictures of his head in alternating directions. He would be looking this way...

...then he would look that way.

Look! Another car! It took me awhile until I realized why he kept looking back and forth--he loved watching the cars zoom past our house!

Focus, Reid. Focus.

I'm not sure if you can see it from here, but I just adore his long eyelashes. All of my kids were blest with them, and unfortunately they did not get them from me. Otherwise I wouldn't be so jealous of theirs! :)

Tuesday Tidbits

I don't really have enough to make a Ten on Tuesday list, so we'll just go with the open-ended Tuesday Tidbits. That way if I stop with three points, I won't feel like an underachiever.
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1. The biggest highlight of Reese's month was the book fair at school. Seriously. I'm having her do a scrapbook of her year, and she wanted to focus on the book fair. She even wanted me to take my camera to school so she could get her picture for the scrapbook. So funny! I mean, I loved the book fair, too, when I was little, but I think she has me beat!

2. Joel ran the Fort 4 Fitness half-marathon this past Saturday. We're so proud of him! Unfortunately we did not go with him to cheer him on, but we were with him in spirit. The kids wanted to pray for him, and Reese's prayer was so sweet. Part of her prayer went like this: "And may Daddy feel that we are with him." Kind of makes paying that Catholic school tuition a little easier. ;)

Ryan's sign he made for his dad. It's a picture of the two of them, plus a red Cardinal bird on a bat...because you know Joel is a huge Cardinals fan. (Ha, ha!)

Reese channeling Bono while holding up her signs. She made three signs: one for the Colts, one for the Cardinals, and one for IU, as these are all of Joel's favorite teams. Well, two out of three anyway.

4. The kids love playing the game of LIFE. This was one of my favorite games when I was growing up, so it's fun being able to play with my own kids.

I mean, who doesn't love a game that encourages the kids to start betting $10,000 on two numbers before spinning the wheel of numbers? Can we say, "Roulette?!?!"

Come on, 8 and 10!!!

5. It always cracks me up that whenever we play, Ryan ends up with a carload of kids. Seriously. He will land on the spots for twin boys, twin girls, and adopting a boy and a girl. The last two times we've played, we had to stop putting kids in his car because he had too many.

6. On the other hand, Reese is always landing on the spaces where she inherits $300,000 from her rich uncle. She even wanted to buy stock and every type of insurance there was the last time she played. She is just like her dad!

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7. One time she got to the end of the game and had over a million dollars, but no kids. She was so sad, so we had her pay us $50,000 for each kid she wanted. Hey, I had to get ahead somehow.

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8. Yesterday I went to talk to Ryan's teacher, and she asked me in all seriousness, "I want to know why Ryan isn't allowed to pray at your house."

I'm sure the look on my face said it all, but I still said, "What?!?! What did Ryan say?!"

She said they were talking about praying at home and Ryan raised his hand and said, "We aren't allowed to pray at our house. We can only pray at Grandma's house."

Of course she knew that wasn't true, but I was still mortified!

I asked Ryan later why he told her that, and he got this cute, sly look on his face and said, "I was just JOKING!" Geez, Ryan...Give us a break!

9. Reese told Joel the other day that someone said the word "A-S" is a bad word. She said, "But how can that be a bad word because it's one of our sight words?!"

10. Well, would you look at that--I got to ten. Kind of. I didn't mention Baby Reid in this entire post, but I think that's okay since he'll get his own post later this week when he turns six months old. I can't believe it!

First Teeth!

Reid has his first two teeth! They started coming through about two weeks ago. I have to admit I noticed teething the most with him. Reese just woke up one day with two teeth, and thy never seemed to bother her at all. Ryan was pretty much the same. I guess I was pretty lucky that my older kids had no issues with teething. Reid wasn't terrible by any means--just needed some Tylenol here and there and constantly chewed on his fingers!

I've tried to get some pictures of his teeth, but it's a little bit of a challenge.

This is what I would call a "deer in headlights" picture. But you can kind of see the two teeth on the bottom.
This is what I would call a "You talkin' to me?" picture.

I would call this one a "I'm about to smile but you're totally going to miss it" picture.

I cropped the same picture to get a better look at those teeth.

I would call this a "Stop talking about me!" face.

I just love this picture because you can see his chubby cheeks and chubby hands. Gotta' love the rolls!

"That's it...I'm calling Grandma!"

Cowboy Room

We finally finished Reid's room...only 5 1/2 months after he was born. We didn't want to rush into anything, you know. ;) We went back and forth on different themes, and just kept going back to the cowboy/western theme. I kept envisioning his name written in rope, and Joel was up for the challenge!

Here are a few pictures of the process and of the finished product:

Making the rope name sign.
I am grateful that he only had 4 letters in his name. :)

Joel and I also tackled making a cornice board for the room. (Thanks for the inspiration, Leslie!) We used the same fabric that Great-Grandma Sheets used to make his baby quilt. It's a small bandana print.

Another inspiration for his room. I love, love, LOVE this picture of Reid at 10 days old on a saddle. This was taken by Jennifer Driscoll.

These picture paired well with little cowboy boots from my Aunt Debbie. (Thanks, Deb!) My mom gave Reid the cowboy hat (thanks, Mom!), and I found the metal cowboy sign at Hobby Lobby.

My mom and aunts found the framed cowboy print at an antique store. My mom also found the chest at Goodwill, and it was perfect for the room.
The sign hangs above where the little cowboy rests his little head each night after a long day on the range.
Reid's finished room...Cowboy up!

little r

I have to thank a dear family friend, Debbie, for this adorable "little r" outfit with matching socks. I think I just want to eat him up! Enjoy the pictures!!

Support Adoption

Our friends, Travis and Sarah, were blessed about a year ago with a daughter they adopted from Ethiopia. They are now feeling God is calling them to return to bring home their son. As many of you know, adoptions are extremely expensive, and they are trying to raise money to cover all of their expenses. You can buy a t-shirt to raise awareness for adoption or buy a raffle ticket (or two or ten!) to possibly win an iPad.

Most importantly, check out their site to hear their story and please keep them in your prayers!

Our Adoption Journey: So What's the Deal with the iPad?: "I know there's been a lot of activity on our T-Shirt fundraiser tab, and many of you have even purchased your own (thank you, thank you, th..."

Walk for Food Allergy

A few weeks ago we participated in the FAAN (Food Allergy & Anaphlyaxis Network) Walk for Food Allergy. We put together a team called Ryan's Renegades and were blown away by how many friends and family donated financially to our team. (Thank you, thank you, thank you!) On the day of the walk, it was kind of crummy weather and I have to admit that I kind of just wanted to stay in my house all morning. But I also knew that people had donated money to the cause, so that motivated me to get up and get going.

The event was small but well organized. They had a tent filled with giveaways and various samples of allergen-free products...more on that later. They also had bounce houses and crafts for the kids to do while they were waiting for the walk to begin. That is where Reese made her awesome sunvisor in the picture below. :)

Ryan with his peeps.

Our team members that walked with us were: Keith, Kelly, Grace, Clare, Holly, and our family: Joel, Kristy, Reese, Ryan, and Baby Reid.

The walk was 2.3 miles along the Indianapolis Canal. I have to say it was such a pretty walk. I didn't take any pictures along the route as my hands were full since I carried Reid the entire time. But trust me--it was pretty.

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After the race, we walked around some more in the tent with the free samples. I noticed some brownies that were free of nuts, eggs, and dairy. I checked the ingredients and saw the first ingredient was wheat. I knew right away that Ryan couldn't have it, but I thought of a student in my class from last year who was allergic to nuts, eggs, and dairy and could actually have those brownies. So I stuck a few in my bag and kept moving.

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Joel and Ryan went to get the car while Reese played some more in the bounce houses with her cousins. When we got to the car, Ryan wasn't looking too good. He was grabbing his stomach and said he didn't feel so well. He also said, "Those chocolate cookies made me sick." I said, "What chocolate cookies?" Joel showed me the package of the brownies and said he had given him some. I said, "He can't have those--they have wheat in them!"

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Immediately I started searching my bags for Benadryl and the Epi-Pen. Ryan started vomiting right there on the sidewalk, and we just made sure he wasn't having any respiratory issues. The good news is that we didn't have to use any medication at all, which is a huge surprise! He has a very severe wheat allergy, so I'm still in shock that he did not have a larger reaction.
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A police officer came over and asked us if we were okay. I told him that yes, we were okay--our son was just having an allergic reaction to something he had eaten...this, not even being 100 yards away from the Food Allergy Walk. ;)

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Luckily, all was well and Ryan is perfectly healthy.

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The sweetest thing happened later that day, though. Out of the blue he said, "Thank you for raising money for me, Mommy." He gave me a huge hug and I knew at that moment that was totally worth getting out of bed, facing the crummy weather, and walking 2.3 miles with a 15 lb baby strapped to me.

Love you, Buddy Boy!